I don’t remember the exact year that I read Zeldman’s classic Designing with Web Standards, but I do remember how much it motivated and inspired me. Up until that point it seemed the web design world was set, tables for layout and CSS for typography. Considering using CSS for all presentation purposes was a revelation. Marking up web pages semantically so they could be read correctly unstyled seemed like a pretty novel idea. So I went forth and did my darnedest to do exactly what the book instructed, design with web standards.

It has been a few years since that book was published and now it seems like using tables for layout is a distant memory. You can almost liken the current state of CSS3 to the use of web standards back in the day. There are some aspects of it ready for use now, but don’t expect those results to display correctly in all browsers. I suppose the one constant between then and now is that Internet Explorer continues to haunt us. Signs do point to that changing though.

So it is on this day that we celebrate all that has been accomplished through the evangelizing of web standards by virtually donning the blue beanie to show our support. Thanks Jeffrey.